My condo smells like cooked poultry!

I have been wanting to eat turducken for a long time. Turducken is a magical dish where you stuff a duck with a chicken... and then proceed to stuff that into a turkey. I had several ways to go about this... I could buy frozen turducken from the supermarket. I was told that they were dry and not very inspiring. Even then, it looks like this item is only stocked around the time of American Thanksgiving... so I missed the boat on that. Also, it wasn't a very glamorous presentation of such a magical dish... to be crammed into a cardboard box and put into a supermarket freezer.

My other option was to buy turducken freshly made at a store. Web research showed that Cajun Corner was the best place to do this in the GTA. Further web research showed that their website was no longer active, and my phone calls to their number were not answered. Not good. Southern Accent serves turducken around Thanksgiving as a special event, but no amount of persuasion could get them to make one specially for me. If you haven't noticed the cultural theme, turducken is a Cajun dish.*

This left me with the only proper option to acquire Turducken... I'LL MAKE IT MYSELF! My turducken web searches lead me to the Cajun Grocer, which offers turduckens delivered anywhere in the continental United States... of which I am not a part of. :( Fortunately, the folks at Cajun Grocer were generous enough to provide the recipe for magical turducken online!

To get the birds, I went to The Healthy Butcher which makes turducken around Thanksgiving time... but not for Christmas. I had them de-bone all the birds for me. I recommend having the butcher do this for an extra fee. The birds from The Healthy Butcher were all locally raised, free-range, and organic. It's the best quality turkey, duck, and chicken I could find... and also the most expensive. I figured I may only make turducken once, so I should go all out.

The recipe from Cajun Grocer requires 3 different stuffings. One for each bird. The turkey stuffing (left) is traditional bread-based stuffing. The duck stuffing (middle) has rice, beef, and mushroom soup. The chicken stuffing (right) has rice and shrimp... but I made it out of rice and sausage.

This is what it looked like before I added the final chicken stuffing. That's 3 birds piled on top of each other. I used an 18 pound turkey, a 5 pound duck, and a 4 pound chicken. Do the math... that's a lot of meat.

This is what it looks like before it goes into the oven. We stitched up the turkey and flipped it upside down. It's boneless except for the turkey wings and legs. It's a slippery sac of meat and stuffing.

Tragically, the turkey split halfway through baking. The recipe called for a 25 pound turkey, but I went with a smaller 18 pound turkey. I may have went crazy with the stuffing too. But it's no big deal. I cover up the split with aluminum foil, and it's ready to go back into the oven. The split actually helps heat get into the turducken so it cooks faster now.

During the baking process, I am fanatical about keeping the birds moist. I've read stories about moist chicken and duck... but a really dry turkey layer. I take the turducken out of the oven every hour and re-baste some of the juices back on top. I also cover the top of the turducken with aluminum foil to prevent drying/burning. Finally, I put a pan of water in the oven to keep the humidity level up. These are all lessons learned from cooking dry turkeys in previous Christmases past.

I am quite proud of the final product. It was a juicy and moist turducken that was rich with flavours. I invited some friends over and we managed to eat a fair bit of it. I'm saving the rest for leftovers this week. I'm quite happy that it all worked out besides some minor setbacks. It's the first time I made turducken, so it's a pretty good first effort. I'm not sure if I will make it again. It's a lot of work... but it's the most delicious poultry dish I've ever had.

* Can you imagine Gambit of the X-men eating turducken? Me neither.

Oh Little Town of Babylon 5...

Christmas time as an adult is a frantic time, spent running around shopping malls and fulfilling social obligations. I often yearn for those Christmas times of my childhood when I could just enjoy the holidays for what they were... holidays!

Now the holiday of "Christmas" has been bastardized* by many throughout the years... but my favorite flavour of Christmas is the non-religious and non-commercial version. It involves spending time with your friends and family and eating lots of food. Gifts are optional, but good will to your fellow human beings is mandatory.

I consider Christmas to be humanity's Babylon 5. It's our last best hope for peace. Simply put, people are most likely to exhibit "good will to fellow human beings" around Christmas time. So if we can't get along during Christmas... we're pretty much screwed. The best positive example of this was the Christmas truce during World War I. So I have some pretty high hopes of the power of Christmas, and I must admit that I am almost always disappointed by reality... Still, the expectation still exists that for a few days every year... we are to not to treat each other like poo. It's a task that is so simple in concept, but so disappointingly difficult to put into practice for many. Good luck to you all, and enjoy your holidays!

* In fairness, Christmas itself is a bastardization of Saturnalia.

Save for the holidays.

It's a fact that finances are strained this time of year, but you can still give the impression that you aren't living the ghetto life this Christmas season. Here are some tips on looking like Yorkville while living like Parkdale:

• Get a bottle of liquid paper and paint your earphones white. Wear them around, and pin the earphone jack inside your jacket pocket. Bop up and down constantly as if you were enjoying your new iPod Nano.
• Read the Wikipedia entries on the most popular PS3 or Wii games. Frequently engage in casual conversation about how awesome the game was on your new system. Tell them you finished the game already, and are replaying it on a harder difficulty setting. For extra mileage, say you are relieved that you didn't sell this system on E-Bay like you did for the other 2 that you bought on opening day.
• Tell your workplace that you're off to Switzerland / New Zealand / California for a week long vacation. Spend the next 7 days at home watching TV. Be sure to buy bronzing lotion and apply about 2 days before you go back to work.
• Walk into a expensive store and casually look over their most expensive item. When a salesperson approaches, ask them a question about the item specifications and react with disappointment when they answer. Ask if they have anything better. Repeat this until they have nothing better, then leave the store in frustration. Repeat for the next store.
• Take large empty produce boxes from the supermarket and gift wrap them. Leave them in your car trunk / office / living room for other people to see or carry them around in fancy shopping bags.
• Find empty wine bottles and fill them with water and food colouring. Re-cork them to create your own wine collection. Give them as gifts to people you will never see again.
• Dress well and crash someone else's Christmas party. Remember to bring your re-corked wine and gift-wrapped produce box. Find a table with people that look like they do not know each other.
• If you can't crash a Christmas party, fabricate a extravagant Christmas party that you attended as discuss it in detail with your peers.